Disney has announced that it will be launching an ad-supported plan for Disney+ on December 8th in the US. The new plan will cost $7.99/month, the same price as the ad-free plan currently costs. On that date, the current ad-free Disney+ plan will increase from $7.99/month to $10.99/month. Disney also revealed that, on October 10th, Hulu’s ad-supported plan will increase from $6.99/month to $7.99/month and the ad-free plan will increase from $12.99/month to $14.99/month. These changes come after Disney already announced that ESPN+ will increase from $6.99/month to $9.99/month on August 23rd.
Disney is also changing its bundled service options. The existing bundle with ad-free Disney+, ad-supported Hulu, and ESPN+ will increase from $13.99/month to $14.99/month. There are also several new bundled plan options being added which include ad-supported Disney+ and Hulu for $9.99/month, ad-supported Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN+ for $12.99, and ad-free Disney+, ad-free Hulu, and ESPN+ for $19.99/month. See the table below for a breakdown of all plans with their monthly and annual prices.
| Service |
Monthly (Old) |
Monthly (New) |
Annual (Old) |
Annual (New) |
Change Date |
| Disney+ (Ads) | N/A | $7.99 | N/A | N/A | 12/8/2022 |
| Disney+ (No Ads) | $7.99 | $10.99 | $79.99 | $109.99 | 12/8/2022 |
| Hulu (Ads) | $6.99 | $7.99 | $69.99 | $79.99 | 10/10/2022 |
| Hulu (No Ads) | $12.99 | $14.99 | N/A | N/A | 10/10/2022 |
| ESPN+ (Ads) | $6.99 | $9.99 | $69.99 | $99.99 | 8/23/2022 |
|
Bundled Services |
Monthly (Old) |
Monthly (New) |
Change Date |
| Disney+ (Ads) Hulu (Ads) | N/A | $9.99 | 12/8/2022 |
| Disney+ (Ads) Hulu (Ads) ESPN+ (Ads) | N/A | $12.99 | 12/8/2022 |
| Disney+ (No Ads) Hulu (Ads) ESPN+ (Ads) | $12.99 | $14.99 | 12/8/2022 |
| Disney+ (No Ads) Hulu (No Ads) ESPN+ (Ads) | $19.99 | $19.99 | 12/8/2022 |
| Disney+ (Ads) Hulu (Ads) + Live TV ESPN+ (Ads) | N/A | $69.99 | 12/8/2022 |
| Disney+ (No Ads) Hulu (Ads) + Live TV ESPN+ (Ads) | $69.99 | $74.99 | 12/8/2022 |
| Disney+ (No Ads) Hulu (No Ads) + Live TV ESPN+ (Ads) | $75.99 | $82.99 | 12/8/2022 |
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Wow – Hulu + Live TV (Disney+ & ESPN+), when I joined in 2019 was 61.99, now 82.99 in 2022
Why no Disney (No Ads) + Hulu (No Ads) option? I don’t want a cent going to ESPN, a channel I never watch.
I 2nd this, I refuse to give any money to any sporting service.
The bundle you describe as Monthly (New) for $19.99 I have had for a year at that price.
Thanks. I updated the table. Disney didn’t mark that plan as a “Legacy” plan so I assumed it didn’t exist yet, but I was wrong.
In my case, ESPN+ is definitely shooting themselves in the foot as I actually only need/use the service to get my college baseball fix, which lasts only about five months. At the $69.99/annual rate, I figured it was worth it for the few extra sports I may watch on ESPN+ throughout the year. At the $99.99/annual rate (a nearly 43% increase!), that same value doesn’t exist, so I will merely go month-to-month at $9.99 for five months ($49.95) and actually end up saving over $20 from the current $69.99 annual rate. C’est la vie!
The cumulative monthly cost of a subscription list that ensures a reasonably comprehensive range of movies and programs is going to result in people returning to alternative means of viewing media.
Its ironic, but not unexpected, that IP owners exercising their legitimate rights and capitalizing their property so thoroughly that the streaming market becomes abusively fragmented is going to reverse the trend of people actually wanting to pay them for watching it.
Agreed. Music streaming services essentially solved music piracy because they’re all convenient giant buffets of most music for a reasonable price that differentiates more on the service than the content. Imagine what would happen if each record label pulled its music from the music streaming services to try to force you to subscribe to Virgin Records+, BMG+, Sony Music+, Captial Records+, Interscope+, etc… Things would go right back to the Napster days of everyone pirating music being the norm.
Streaming video used to be the same where early Netflix, Prime Video, and Hulu were more about being a buffet of various content from across all Movie/TV studios instead of being about original content. This is going to lead to most streaming services either failing or consolidating under the big players (which we’re already seeing) and to an increase in piracy. The big question is which one will happen faster and win in the end. Consolidation or piracy.
My guess is that the current capitalist entropy will settle into a consolidation of six to eight actual players, Disney certainly preeminent among them, with the last two always in jeopardy of being supplanted by a disruptive newcomer that has hold of the zeitgeist. And then the newcomers will potentially flame out, to be replaced by another. As example, consider the Cannon Group.
This cumulative cost of subscriptions, given current rates, will always be unacceptable to a certain percentage of minimally tech savvy users. As you alluded, it was so in the Napster age, and it will be so again with these users, if I’m correct. This percentage, or rather the ratio that will submissively accept what is commercially offered vs. those that sheer off into alternatives appears to be a relative constant tied to the ease of the alternatives compared to the cost of the mainstream. I don’t see the factor of the ease of utilizing the alternatives to be changing anytime in the near future.
With that, I suspect that the big players are calculating, probably correctly, that the money they lose from the number of pirates they create is insignificant in comparison to the revenue from people that just pay up.
Exactly what I feared. Current lowest price plan will now have ads and an ad free plan will cost more. No price break for you!!!! Expect Netflix will follow suit.
my disney+ renwes in nov will i still get the old price for the annual for one more year
One of the original Disney+ bundles of ad-free Disney+, ad-supported Hulu and ESPN+ (which is currently $13.99, not $12.99) will become a legacy plan unavailable to new subscribers. Current subscribers can keep the plan (which will increase by $1 in price) as long as they don’t cancel after it ceases to be offered The new bundles will either have ad-free ($19.99) or ad-supported ($12.99) services.